Condition

If you'd like a shipping estimate before the auction, contact Cowan's in-house shipping department at shipping@cowans.com or 513.871.1670 x219.

Buyer's Premium

23% up to$500,000.00

18% above$500,000.00

Shipping

Eliminate the Hassle of Third-Party Shippers: Let Cowan's Ship Directly To You!
If you'd like a shipping estimate before the auction, contact Cowan's in-house shipping department at shipping@cowans.com or 513.871.1670 x219.

Payment

The discounted "Purchase Price" for each lot shall equal the hammer price, buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, all packing, handling, insurance and shipping costs. U.S. bidders may pay with cash, personal check, money order, bank check or wire transfer. Bidders outside the U. S. will be required to pay by wire transfer. Credit cards are accepted on an auction-by-auction basis - please contact the office prior to bidding in the auction to confirm payment options. Bidders unknown to Cowan's may be asked to provide additional personal identity or banking information. Cowan's reserves the right to hold a purchased lot until a check has cleared.

Accepted payment methods

Warranties and Disclaimers

Cowan's Auctions, Inc. makes every effort to be accurate in the descriptions of the items being sold. We reserve the right to change or make corrections to any of the information provided on the digital catalog at any time and without any prior warning. Other than the Limited Warranty outlined subsequently, Cowan's Auctions does not guarantee correctness, precision, thoroughness or completeness of any information, written, oral or digital, nor for errors or omissions in description or for any faults or defects in any lot. All property is sold as is and neither the consignor nor Cowan's, our officers, employees or affiliates (protected entities) give any warranty or guarantee or assume liability of any kind in respect to any lot with regard to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, description, size, quality, condition, attribution, authenticity, authorship, rarity, importance, materials, medium, provenance, exhibition history, literature, period, culture, source, origin, historical relevance or condition. In no event shall Cowan's or its protected entities be liable, however arising, for any economic losses (including, without limitation, loss of revenues, profits, contract, business, goodwill or anticipated savings) or any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages arising from, or directly or indirectly related to, the use of, or inability to use, the digital platform or the content. No statement made at the sale, in the bill of sale or invoice or elsewhere shall be deemed such a warranty of representation or an assumption of liability. Except as required by local law any warranty of any kind whatsoever is excluded by this paragraph.
Cowan's makes a limited warranty only to the original buyer of record concerning the authenticity of each lot for a period of 14 days after the bidder's receipt of the purchased lot. If a buyer is not satisfied that the lot purchased is genuine, the buyer may, at his or her own expense, obtain the opinion of two mutually agreed upon recognized experts in the field of the disputed lot. If these experts determine that the item is not genuine, the buyer's sole and exclusive remedy shall be the rescission of the sale and refund of the amount paid for the item. It is specifically understood and agreed that the rescission of the sale and refund is exclusive and in lieu of any other remedy which might otherwise be available as a matter of law or in equity, and such remedy is conditioned upon the buyer returning the property in the same condition as at the time of sale. Cowan's shall not be liable for any incidental or consequential damages. All sales are final, with no returns or refunds except as provided in this limited warranty.
Cowan's Auctions, Inc. and its consignors make no warranty or representation, express or implied, that the purchaser will acquire any copyright or reproduction rights to any lot sold, including manuscript material, photographs, prints or works of art. Cowan's expressly reserves the right to reproduce any image of the lots sold in the catalogs. The copyright in all images, illustrations and written material produced by or for Cowan's relating to a lot, including the contents of the catalogs, is, and shall remain at all times, the property of Cowan's and shall not be used by the purchaser, nor by anyone else, without prior written consent. Cowan's does not guarantee the working order of any clock, watch, electronic or mechanical device. Dimensions given in the catalog descriptions may be approximate.
If for any reason a purchased lot cannot be delivered in the same condition as at the time of sale, or should any purchased lot be stolen, mis-delivered or lost prior to delivery, Cowan's Auctions, Inc. shall not be liable for any amount in excess of that paid by the purchaser. In no event shall the total aggregate liability of the protected entities to you for all damages, losses, and causes of action arising from the terms and conditions exceed, in the aggregate, the amount, if any, paid by you to Cowan's for the purchase of auction items.
Except for On-Line Only Auctions, all lots are available for inspection prior to the auction. Condition reports for most items can be found online at Cowan's website (www.cowans.com), and prospective bidders are encouraged to contact Cowan's directly for additional information regarding the condition of any lot. Cowan's does not warrant the condition of any item. Buyers interested in the condition of an item are encouraged to contact Cowan's, and, to the best of our ability, we will document for the prospective bidder the condition status of any lot. Condition is always a subjective evaluation and final responsibility rests with the buyer to assess the condition of any item sold by Cowan's.
Absentee and telephone bidding is offered as a free service to our customers and prospective bidders. Cowan's shall not be responsible for any errors or failures in executing bids, either absentee, telephone or via the internet.

Condition Reports and Photo Requests

We have a zoomify feature on Cowan's website that allows you to zoom in on any part of the image you want. It has been particularly helpful with paintings, since you can zoom in on the signature, or the paint, to see if a discolored area is flaking, etc. Please try zooming on a painting before requesting an additional image. Many painting condition questions can be resolved with this feature. If you need additional information or photographs of lots, we will get to them in the order received. Please check Cowan's website as we can update condition information quickly there. We make no guarantees about getting additional information and photographs to you if the questions are received less than 48 hours before the sale.
A condition statement is only an opinion and should not be treated as a statement of fact. Cowan's Auctions, Inc. shall have no responsibility for any error or omission and each lot is sold AS IS. The absence of a condition statement does not imply that the lot is in perfect condition or completely free from wear and tear, imperfections or the effects of aging. Cowan's Auctions, Inc. recommends that prospective bidders examine lots in person or make inquiries to the department concerning condition of any lots before the sale as all lots are sold in AS IS condition.

Additional Notes to Online Bidders

This item will be sold in a live auction in which we will sell Lot 1, then Lot 2, then Lot 3, etc. If you want to estimate when the lots in which you are interested will sell, generally we sell about 100 lots per hour, but sometimes it is faster, sometimes slower. These notes address questions asked or problems encountered by online bidders. For our full Terms Conditions, see the other box.
Estimating shipping costs before the sale: We cannot estimate shipping on large items such as furniture. These must be shipped by freight or trucking companies and we cannot quote their rates for you. We will try to provide contact information for the companies, but you can also check with a local mover in your area. We can give you a all park estimate for small items shipped to U.S. addresses, although final costs are also dependent on insurance costs, which are in turn dependent on sale price. International estimates are a bit more difficult.
International bidders: Smaller items can be shipped to many countries around the world, but we have had problems with some. If we ship an item and it does not arrive, we will not refund your purchase amount. If you know there have been issues receiving items in your country, please check with us before bidding.
Cowan's will not insure any package shipped to any location other than within the continental United States or Canada. Some international shipping companies will provide insurance, however, most common carriers (UPS, Federal Express, USPS) will not make full restitution for damages or loss. For this reason Cowan's recommends that successful international buyers secure their own insurance.
For Customs purposes, international buyers should be aware that Cowan's will NOT declare less than the full purchase price of any lot. We can mark the antiques as 100 years old (if it is). You should also be aware of any legal issues in the country to which a lot is going. This is especially true animal products. Nearly everything we sell is antique, but we may still not be able to ship into your home country. Please do not ask us to break the law
Registration: Please register to bid well before the start of the sale. We have a manual approval process, so it generally takes at least a day to finalize your registration. This means there is a human involved, it is not automated. Once the sale begins, we may not be able to approve your registration. The human also has to sleep, and cannot approve your registration in the middle of the night (EST). While the sale is in progress, we may or may not see your registration pop up. It depends on how busy the sale is. If there is a lot of action on LiveAuctioneers, it may be a while before we see the registration request.
Bid Priority: If you leave an absentee bid, it will be executed in the order received. The earliest bid entered is executed first and will lock any live bidders trying to bid during the sale until the maximum bid amount is reached. The bid priority does not apply to floor bidders (for live sales). What happens on occasion is that a lot will sell to a floor bidder for the amount left by an online bidder. This is usually just the luck of the draw.
For example, you leave a bid of 300 for an item: the bidding opens at 225 and your online bid is recognized by the auctioneer; the floor advances to 250; your online bid is recognized at 275; the floor bids 300. The floor bidder takes the lot since LiveAuctioneers cannot advance to 325 on your behalf, and you cannot bid 300 because you would be bidding against your 275 bid. That is, just because you left a bid of 300 two weeks before the sale does not mean you get the lot because your bid was earlier. You are bidding against other people in a live auction. This does not mean we discriminate against online bidders. Often online bidders get lots for less than their maximum bid, and typically a quarter to a third of our lots sell online.
Invoices: We will send invoices for the entire sale within five business days after the end of the entire auction. If you purchased an item early in the auction, you will need to wait until the entire sale is completed before we compile invoices. The same is true of a multi-day sale. Please let us know if you do not receive one after a week or so. We can fax, email or re-send the invoice. It takes a few days to calculate shipping. Often bidders are successful on multiple lots. We combine these on the invoice and do our best to combine shipping charges, also, to save buyers a bit of shipping expense. (We may have to ship items separately because of size, shape or fragility, however.)
Shipping: Please allow at least 14 to 21 days after payment for us to ship your lot.